After many weekends employing our creative talents to prepare our blog site for its public debut, we had put the development of new content on the back-burner. This left us with a backlog of travel photos to sort through and posts to write. We were also gently reminded by friends and family in Australia that they were keen to read about our latest cultural experiences. Our recurring 'London Life' post series had not been attended to since Christmas. As such, this post is a sweep up of Winter and Spring 2014 activities in London where we got in touch with our cultural side by eating, visiting events and linking up with family and friends.
Canary Wharf Ice Sculpting Festival
Winter 2014 didn't bring snow to London. We had some temperatures that you could comfortably keep ice-cream solid for an entire day; but no fluffy white stuff to cause public transport chaos. The nearest we got to seeing frozen water was during a visit to the Canary Wharf Ice Sculpting Festival held at Wood Wharf one Friday night.
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| A mix of the sculptures illuminated in glowing blue light |
Obika Mozzarella Bar
Canary Wharf with its steel enclosed wind tunnels and skyscrapers is one of our least favourite places to be during winter due to its cold and sterile persona once the rush of each working day has passed. It is only on closer inspection that you find the residents burrowed in the subterranean shopping malls or congregated in bars drinking mulled wine that you feel that life in the Wharf isn't that bad for some.
Obika is a chain of mozzarella bars that we had first visited whilst in Rome. The Canary Wharf store is located near the Heron Quays DLR station and is a convenient stopover for wine and cheese before the commute home. One Friday night we did just that, buying a bottle of Chianti Classico, cured meats, anchovies and a tub of buffalo mozzarella to mind us of previous trips in sunny Tuscany.
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| Affogato - a vanilla ice-cream ball drowned in an espresso |
La Tosca
Across the canal at West India Quay, we have made several visits to the Spanish Restaurant La Tosca and snacked on small tapas meals (great value in combination with discounts offered in the Tastecard), reminding us of past sunny trips to Spain.
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| Tapas fest |
Burgess Park, Southwark
Exercise did occupy some of our time during Winter, as we needed to balance out the calories consumed with all the eating. Burgess Park is one of the largest public spaces in South London, occupying 46 hectares and was created in the 1950s to transform and redevelop an area that had been affected by the WWII blitz. The park contains a large lake where it is possible to fish with a license, many walking tracks, recreational areas and a cafe.
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| Swans and geese at Burgess Park |
East St Market
The East St Market is one of London's oldest markets, trading since the 16th century and is acknowledged as the birthplace of Charlie Chaplin. There are many stores selling fresh produce, clothes and small collectibles. We arrived quite late in the day so may of the traders had packed away their wares, but we still found a cute imitation Delft pottery Dutch kissing couple for £1.
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| The famous gates of East St Market |
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| Kissing couple |
A season of flowers
Whilst walking around Southwark in cold January, we were surprised to see cherry blossoms had already made an appearance, almost three months ahead of Spring - an impact of global warming?
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| Winter cherry blossoms |
Closer to 'true' Spring time, we came across the beautiful stone St Anne's Church in Southwark that had a neat church yard filled with flowers.
A few streets away at a florist/deli on Bermondsey St, we were surprised to see our first 'rainbow roses' that are made according to a YouTube tutorial by getting white roses, cutting the stems and sticking them into different tumblers of coloured food dye and leaving them untouched for 24 hours.
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| Rainbow roses |
Occasionally, there are surprises of colour that appear in your own garden. After considering a new plant behind our garbage bin to be a new species of weed, we watched in amazement as it developed into a pretty red tulip.
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| A surprise tulip |
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| Inside of the tulip |
Borough Market and Cantina Vinopolis
Recommendations for new restaurants in London is often sourced from friend's recommendations or review new entries or highly ranked suggestions on the Open Table (formerly Top Table) booking site. The site allows you to search for restaurants within an area of London and earn 'points' for dining. Points can be redeemed for cash vouchers that can be used to reduce your restaurant bill, effectively eating more to save money. So when we were looking for a new restaurant for an end of week session of good food and wine, we booked in Cantina Vinopolis at London Bridge.
For pre-drinks on route, we ended up walking through Borough Market and stopped off at the Wine Pantry for a glass of British wine
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| A British red and white wine |
Cantina Vinopolis
We chose the set menu option and the servings were quite generous, leaving us quite full by the time we ate dessert.
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| Fishcakes |
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| Cured meats |
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| Roast belly pork |
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| Lemon tart |
Baltic, Southwark
For a romantic date night out we headed to the Baltic restaurant, the venue for our wedding reception almost two years ago. The staff remembered us and we were treated with shots of vodka to relive the happy memories.
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| Scallops |
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| Salmon |
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| Steak tartare |
Nobu, Park Lane
Nobu is a restaurant that attracts celebrities, just as the chain's owner and chef are well known industry figures. The night we visited, we didn't actively notice anyone famous, but perhaps we were too distracted by the food on our plates to look up.
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| Nobu personalised Easter Eggs |
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| Selection of Nobu food |
The Criterion
Similarly, in celebration of an anniversary, we headed to Piccadilly Circus and ate at The Criterion restaurant, enjoying the live band within the setting of a former hotel decorated with a Byzantium theme.
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| Food and interior of The Criterion |
Joe's Fried Chicken
Another find using the Open Table website was Joe's Southern Kitchen and Bar in Covent Garden. We ate a delicious fried shrimp starter, tasty pieces of fried chicken and an impressively meaty roast beef short rib.
Home cooking
Joe's Southern Kitchen also served Beer Can Chicken, however we decided to make our own, using a tall can of Budweiser to provide the stand and to flavour the meat.
Shu Castle, Szechuan Restaurant
However not all of our restaurant experiences started off with hunting through the Open Table site. Occasionally, walking passed a restaurant that looks interesting is enough for us to go in and give it a try. Shu Castle is located on Old Kent Road and specialises in spicy Sichuan food - a cuisine that we enjoyed several times in Melbourne but had not tried in London.
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| Fried chicken with chili |
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| Chili dumplings |
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| Dan dan Noodles |
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| Rice noodles |
The Sheaf and Zizzis
Sometimes eating and drinking at tried and tested restaurants is also part of our London routine. Our 'local' - The Sheaf, by London Bridge station and any one of the many Zizzi restaurants for value pasta and pizza.
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| Guinness at The Sheaf |
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| Seafood pasta at Zizzi's, One New Change |
Gold Mine and Le Cafe Anglais
When Chinese New Year arrived, we headed to Bayswater with friends Nara, Gav, Meei-Lin and Rob to celebrate with dinner at Gold Mine. The star dish was a crispy coated dish of prawns - full of yummy goodness.
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| Prawns in a crispy coating |
For after dinner coffee and dessert -as the Gold Mine restaurant was keen to have the table back for the queue of customers that had built up by the door; we walked a block away to a small shopping centre where the Art Deco inspired Le Cafe Anglais offered a great place to hang out and chat.
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| The grand crystal chandelier |
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| Pineapple upside-down cake |
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| Lemon tart |
So good was our experience at Gold Mine and Le Cafe Anglais, that we returned a few weeks later with friends Wai, Allee and Rob and shared a very good platter of cheese.
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| Cheese and fruit platter |
Stonehenge, Bath and Oxford Road Trip
When Mei's cousin Stuart visited for a post-Uni trip around Europe, we joined Mei's uncle Collin on a road trip to Stonehenge, the pretty city of Bath and dinner in the university town of Oxford.
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| Stonehenge (across the road from a pig farm) |
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| Thatch roofs in the Cotswolds |
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| A white horse on a hillside |
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| Memories from Bath, including our meal at The Salamander pub |
The Big Easy
The next time we caught up with Stuart, he was on the return leg home after an enjoyable trip. To bid him farewell, we had dinner at the newly opened Big Easy restaurant in Covent Garden.
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| Pulled pork, chicken and ribs |
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| Mei's lobster |
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| Check out that collection of booze |
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| Group photo with our bibs |
Butler's at The Chesterfield Hotel
We also had to say goodbye to another UK expat friend, Roopa who was moving back to Australia. Going out in style, we chose afternoon tea at Butler's at The Chesterfield Hotel in Mayfair where Mei had a Dancing Dragon tea where the ball unfurls into a beautiful flower; and we were treated with a tall stand of cakes and sandwiches, leftovers were taken home in a neat little box.
Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden and Brew Wharf
During April we were visited by our Norwegian relatives - Michelle and Marius. They came over for a week of shopping, a side trip to Dover and we introduced them to the joys of Pimms at the Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden and took them out for dinner at Brew Wharf, London Bridge.
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| Pimms |
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| Dinner at Brew Wharf |
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| Deep fried soft shell crab |
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| Chicken livers |
Pixar in Concert, Royal Albert Hall
Stepping away from the food side of our London activities, we visited the Royal Albert Hall in February to watch the Pixar in Concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra providing the music score whilst we watched short clips from the well known Pixar films like Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Cars and WALL-E.
Vikings Life and Legend, British Museum
At the start of the year, we decided to take a break from overseas travel and focus on visiting museums. However, we only managed to make it to one - seeing another few rooms of the British Museum and the Vikings Life and Legend exhibit.
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| Outside the British Museum |
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Replica of the Jelling stone, in memory of the conversion
of the Vikings to Christianity |
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| Sutton Hoo Helmet |
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| Anglo Saxon jewellery |
Greenwich Market
When the skies cleared one afternoon, we headed down the Thames to Greenwich where we stopped off at the market for a tasty lamb halloumi wrap, churros and icecream from Black Vanilla.
We then hung around the lawns of the Royal Naval College, before noticing that one of the Halls and the Chapel were open for the public to visit. We were amazed to see such beautiful artwork within the local neighbourhood. This made us more determined to continue seeking out new cultural experiences each time we were home in London for a weekend.
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| Hanging out on the lawns |
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| Cutty Sark |
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